What came first – the Trump phenomenon or CNN's relentless coverage of Trump?
Recently, CNN head Jeff Zucker has been busy defending the network's coverage of this U.S. election cycle. Because he has to. Fingers are being pointed. The finger-pointers note that Zucker was in charge of NBC when Donald Trump's reality show The Apprentice was launched. They note that Trump gets tons of coverage on CNN. His rallies and speeches get wall-to-wall coverage while the events of other politicians get less time and attention.
There have also been mutterings from inside CNN that the Trump fascination is too much and that it's a self-perpetuating phenomenon. The more coverage Trump gets, the more substantial he seems as a candidate.
It's a gnarly question, this one. CNN's ratings have improved, thanks to millions watching Republican debates that, inevitably, feature Donald Trump saying something outrageous. Mind you, CNN didn't create that mass of angry American voters who see Trump's simple-minded solutions as the quick fixes the country needs.
Jeff Zucker told The Guardian on the weekend: "The critics of Donald Trump are looking for people to blame for his rise. There are many people who are either surprised by his strength, or don't like him, and want to blame someone to explain why he has been this popular."
He also dismisses the idea that CNN is cultivating the Trump phenomenon.
Well, yes and no. Yes, the Trump phenomenon would exist without CNN. But no, CNN isn't entirely innocent. It knows what it's doing, because it works. The key in all of this is Zucker himself.
Sometimes, I feel like I've been listening to Zucker and watching his actions for years. I have, actually. And so have you.
In 2012, when he was appointed head of CNN, I wrote this: "The Zucker touch, as seen at Today and at NBC Entertainment, is lethal." What I meant was that Zucker went up the ladder in the TV business because it's believed that he has an uncanny ability to spot a certain kind of entertainment phenomenon, to turn substance into fluff and to make money doing it.
His reputation was made in the early 1990s when he was made executive producer of NBC's Today, at the age of 26, and he made it the most-watched morning show in the U.S. market. He turned it into a strange mixture of candy and hard news.
He oversaw Today's coverage of the 1992 presidential election, which had three candidates, incumbent George H.W. Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot. Zucker focused on the personalities, not the politics. Lengthy personal interviews appeared on Today and there were viewer call-in segments. Meanwhile, there were also cooking demonstrations, weather reports delivered on a sugar high and anchors so perky they'd give you a headache. It worked and made a fortune for NBC.
Then, without much experience in actually making and scheduling comedy and drama, he was put in charge of NBC's entertainment division – running an entire network and its prime-time shows.
He oversaw the arrival of "supersized" sitcoms, the end of Friends and the arrival of The Apprentice, along with Fear Factor. In other areas, it was disaster after disaster: the Friends spin-off Joey, Conan O'Brien's brief tenure on The Tonight Show and bitter departure, and the train wreck of Jay Leno's nightly comedy show. NBC went from first to fourth in viewers among the U.S. networks.
In his job, Zucker talked to TV critics twice a year in Los Angeles. It was always hard to tell when he was joking. Just as it was really hard to figure out why anyone would think that some of the sitcoms he launched were funny. Eventually, as things got weirder, Zucker stopped talking to the TV critics directly. He let others make speeches and take questions while he lurked at the back of the room.
What's worth noting is that Zucker shifted gears as NBC imploded. On his watch, several good series were launched, including Southland and Amy Poehler's Parks and Recreation. And he kept the NBC version of The Office on the air after it launched to very low ratings.
And for all the disasters, Zucker has continued to fail in an upward trajectory. He was unscathed because, in the arenas of news and reality TV, he had a golden touch. Maybe adding five minutes to sitcoms and calling them "supersized" was ridiculous, but Fear Factor stayed on the air for years and The Apprentice was, for a while, a huge hit. You see, Donald Trump is more compelling than most fictional dramas, and Zucker learned that years ago.
CNN isn't squeaky-clean in the matter of Trump. It promotes him because it works, and the CNN boss knows it does. He'd probably say the blame is with the viewers.